Within this application several publications are referenced by Arabic numerals within parentheses. Full citations for these references may be found at the end of the specification immediately preceding the claims. The disclosures of these publications in their entirety are hereby incorporated by reference into this application in order to more fully describe the state of the art to which this invention pertains.
The invention relates to novel preparations and drugs for the treatment and prevention of autoimmune diseases, which are based on immunogenic materials obtained from membranes of certain cells and cell lines of autoimmune lymphocytes or which are based on activated cells which have been treated with a novel pressure treatment, a chemical cross-linking agent, or a cytoskeletal disrupting agent.
The preparations for the prevention of autoimmune diseases include vaccines which comprise membrane proteins obtained from specific autoimmune T cell lines containing certain T cell receptors or pressure-treated activated T cells. The invention further provides processes for the preparation of such active cell membrane materials and for the treatment of activated cells, and to pharmaceutical compositions which contain either the cell membrane materials or the activated cells as their active ingredient.
The etiological agents of autoimmune diseases are endogenous lymphocytes which attack normal constituents of the individual. The inventors have been engaged in growing as long term cell lines specific autoimmune T lymphocytes which produce a number of experimental autoimmune diseases (1-9). The thus obtained comparatively pure cultures of autoimmune cells have facilitated investigation of pathogenesis, uncovered the carrier state of autoimmunity and provided means for vaccination against, and treating, autoimmunity (5-9).